A friend of mine came to me with a problem. He has a 1980 Turbo TA that he is bringing back to life (literally). He had mentioned to me in the past about not being able to find the proper lenses for his ts indicators on the dashplate. In my 78 they are shaped like arrows but in his 80 they are round with a small arrow printed on the lens. He searched for a year before coming back to me and asking what he could do. I've worked on plastic models for a number of years now so I have some experience in making the peices I want/need to complete a kit. I bought some molding clay first and used what was left of the old lense to make a pattern in it. I poured a resin in this that I had colored green. It didn't work. I tried making another mold in to which I would heat up some green acetate and try to press into place to get the shape. Once again this didn't work either. After a few beers I figured out how to do this and here's what I came up with.

1. Print the arrows on decal paper. I found a very close arrow in the Wingding 3 font (size 18 Bold). Covered with decal clear.



2. I cut a .040 piece of styrene to fit around the indicator openings in the dash plate. Glued them to dashplate with epoxy.


3. Cut out arrow decals and placed them on the green acetate I was using.


4. Cut the acetate to size and made sure the arrows were orientated correctly. The acetate was then folded in half to help protect the decal. The backside of the acetate was sanded until opaque.


5. Acetates were glued to the styrene.


6. The finished product.


If you need the sheet of arrows, I have it saved in a word document and would be glad to pass it on to whoever needs it. Just send me a PM.

Pete

Brilliant! Behold the power of Brewsky!

Wow! That's very nifty! Thanks for sharing that! I may have to give it a try eventually. Mine are missing.

If you need any help Nate, just let me know.

I have some extra Arrow decals printed off, I can mail when you're ready.

Pete